


measured out with coffee spoons

by bessemerprocess



Category: Go On (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Coffee, Family, Friendship, Gen, Great Writers Steal Ficathon, Grief/Mourning, Hockey, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne believes that all social interactions should come with coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	measured out with coffee spoons

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Great Writers Steal Ficathon" for srs_bsnss' prompt: _For I have known them all already, known them all:/Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,/I have measured out my life with coffee spoons._

Anne becomes the constant in Ryan's life. She's the one who understands, even when he doesn't, the one who can walk this path with him.

Sometimes, it is just coffee at this hipster coffee shop. The coffee is frankly amazing, even if Ryan is usually happy with instant. Anne can keep up a steady flow of snark about the other patrons that can distract Ryan from almost anything. If she's the one in need of a distraction, he'll tell her embarrassing stories about himself flubbing lines on the air or having athletes laugh in his face. Ryan's not so sure he's as good at this as Anne is, but most days she ends up smiling.

On the bad days, Anne shows up, coffee in hand, and they sit and watch whatever sport Ryan can find on TV, until they can both breathe again without wanting to sob. It surprises Ryan to learn that Anne has an encyclopedic knowledge of both professional and college ice hockey. He doesn't learn until the day she says, "King, I can't take hockey today," that Patty played for the University of Wisconsin in college. Patty is the one who had taught Anne about icing and penalty shots, she's the one who put Anne in hockey skates for the first time, the one who shared the love of the thing with her. Ryan thinks he would have really liked Patty, or at least, he would've liked the way Anne had loved her.

On good days, she drags him out of the house, hands him coffee in a paper cup, and drags him out to a park with her kids. He likes Abby and Nate, but he knows Janie would have loved them. Abby has an intense obsession with the monkey bars, climbing all over them, doing flips, and hanging from her knees in ways the make Ryan worry for her safety. Anne just tells him to calm down. "This is what kids do, King," she says, and shake her head at him. Nate is much more sensible, or at least, it seems that way to Ryan. He swings on the swing, and slides down the slides, but he never goes too high or too fast. Nate never makes the breath catch in Ryan's throat, not the way Abby routinely does, not until the day he tugs on Ryan's hand and says, "Come play with me, Uncle Ryan." Ryan pushes Nate on the swing, while Anne tries to contain her laughter at his face. It must have been a pretty spectacular face, because she's choking a little bit, and ends up covering with a coughing fit.

Later, she puts the kids to bed, while he's in charge of the coffee maker. It's not crazy complicated like the one in the office, just a twelve-cup Mr. Coffee, and Ryan is pouring coffee into mugs by the time Anne comes back down stairs. "Uncle Ryan, huh," she says to him and finally smiles. "Looks like you've been adopted into the family."

"Shanghaied is more like it," he replies, but he is grinning. He hasn't been a part of a family since Janie died, and even then it had been just the two of them against the world. Anne isn't the same kind of family as Janie. She's sort of what Ryan imagines having an older sister would have been like, with less hitting and more snark.

"To family," he says, and she clinks her coffee mug against his, and repeats, "To family," before leaning her head on his shoulder and letting him wrap his arm around her. They stand there like that, leaning into one another, in Anne's kitchen, until their coffee grows cold. Neither of them mind.


End file.
